OVERNIGHT. Jazz.

Jones And Person Stir Up Things At Jazz Showcase

October 14, 1993|By Howard Reich, Tribune Arts Critic.

Rough-hewn, rambunctious and rather loud, the music of Etta Jones and Houston Person does not fall lightly on the ear. Nor is it intended to.

Jones' somewhat rasping singing voice and Person's mostly hard-hitting tenor saxophone overstate their case a bit, or at least they did during Tuesday night's opening set in the Jazz Showcase. Yet there's a contagious energy and exuberance in most everything they perform, so that once the listener has adjusted to this brand of playing, it's easy to be swept away by it.

In a way, Jones and Person, longtime musical collaborators, are as much blues artists as jazz improvisers, hence the somewhat exhibitionist nature of their music. The honks and blasts that Person draws from his horn, the shouts and staccato atacks of Jones' alto are not precisely the kind of fare one typically encounters in the Jazz Showcase, where be-bop still rules.

But there's something distinctly refreshing about seeing-and hearing-Jones and Person shake things up. The two musicians, backed by a fine rhythm section, appear to savor the no-holds-barred approach as well.

For all her blues sensibilities, Jones also shows the influence of two sublime jazz singers-Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae. The particularly lilting way Jones sometimes phrases a line recalls classic Holiday, the declamatory way she reads a lyric implies the influence of McRae.

Still, there's more than enough in Jones' style to call her own, as she proved with the lamenting vocal quality she brought to "Say It Isn't So," the tough rhythmic accents she lent "You're Driving Me Crazy" and the deeply blue shadings she painted in "You've Changed," a Billie Holiday anthem that Jones made into her own.

Person is less subtle and more aggressive, as he demonstrated in his fast and ornate version of "I Remember You" and his pronounced melodic accents in "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart."

Fortunately, on the ballad "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," Person brought the emotional temperature and the decibel level down a few degrees. Here, for a few moments, at least, Person showed a more introspective facet of his tenor playing. It was one of the evening's high points.

For the most part, though, Person and Jones generated a great deal of sound and fury, which will please those who prefer music on the grand scale and with plenty of grit.